Trooper Tales

About this issue

This is an illustration page for a book, not a penny dreadful The content is the preliminary matter and opening story from Trooper Tales: A Series of Sketches of The Real American Private Soldier by Will Levington Comfort, published by Street & Smith in 1899. The seventeen-story collection focuses on enlisted cavalry soldiers, predominantly through Comfort's claimed firsthand experience in the U.S. Army across various postings: the Southwest, Southern camps, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Stories employ realistic military detail and dialect. "The Recruit in the Black Cavalry," the featured story, depicts a young Black cavalryman nicknamed Sadie, whose strong singing voice and quick horsemanship contrast with his reckless character, as illustrated in an episode during the Spanish-American War near Santiago where he abandons his picket duty to forage chickens from local villages.